Council Member Jeff Hayner’s proposal to eliminate funding for the deer management program was defeated with an 8-2 vote, with only Mayor Christopher Taylor supporting the move.

Council Member Chip Smith, D-5th Ward, was absent.

The city’s budget for the new fiscal year starting July 1 includes more than $430 million in spending, including new commitments for affordable housing, climate-action programs to shift toward clean energy, pedestrian safety initiatives such as improved crosswalks, increased police funding, support for the city’s new police oversight commission and community mental health initiatives.

Though a relatively small part of the budget, several residents came out to argue for and against the $250,000 allocated for deer management over the next two years. The deer cull program has been controversial for years and Hayner sought to end it.

“We’ve spent $750,000 so far on this and we claim we have great needs in the city. We have needs for affordable housing, but we spend it to kill deer,” said Hayner, D-1st Ward, adding he wanted to keep the city’s deer management costs from reaching $1 million.

Cost aside, it’s a moral issue for him.

“We’re sending people into our parks with guns and many people are opposed to that, and many people are opposed to killing and would like to find a way to live with our semi-destructive neighbors,” he said.

Other city officials believe the annual culls are needed to keep the deer population in check, citing concerns about damage to natural areas and residential landscaping, as well as deer-vehicle crashes.

City-hired sharpshooters killed 386 deer in Ann Arbor during four culls over the last four years.

“To abandon the deer management program at this very time when we’re close to maintenance levels would be ill-advised,” said Council Member Jane Lumm, a 2nd Ward independent.

“We embarked on this four years ago because the overpopulation had become a serious problem."

Lumm is concerned the deer population could double every two or three years in the absence of continued culls.

Hayner argued there should be more concern over loss of natural areas caused by new housing developments.

“There’s never any conversation around the changes that we’re making to our landscape that are putting us in increased conflict with our furry friends,” he said.

“Deer are just doing what deer do, and what we’re doing is putting people over deer."

The council debated and voted on a series of tweaks to the city administrator’s $430-million budget plan before unanimously adopting the 2019-20 budget just before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 21, six and a half hours into the meeting.

Council unanimously supported Lumm’s proposal to take an extra $3 million from cash reserves for street repairs, but voted 7-3 to reject her proposal to restore fall leaf pickup and holiday tree pickup services.

Restoring those services, which were cut in 2010, would have required $470,000 in one-time costs and $370,000 in ongoing operating costs.

Only Kathy Griswold, D-2nd Ward, and Jack Eaton, D-4th Ward, joined Lumm in supporting the expenses.

The two eliminated programs once allowed residents to rake leaves into streets instead of mulching them, bagging them or putting them in compost bins, and to leave holiday trees at the curb, rather than putting them in compost bins, cutting and bundling them or taking them to drop-off locations around the city.

Taylor argued the old leaf-pickup program was never successful, because wet leaves would freeze to the street and stay there. They also would clog storm drains, officials said.

Hayner, D-1st Ward, said he mulches his leaves now and it helps his lawn.

Council voted 9-1 to support Lumm’s proposal to add two more police officer positions to conduct more proactive patrols in neighborhoods and around schools, with Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, opposed.

The city has reduced the number of sworn officers in the Ann Arbor Police Department from 171 to 124 since 2003, Lumm said, while the number of hours of unassigned proactive patrolling in the last five years decreased by 34 percent.

The $191,114 for the two positions is coming from eliminating a proposed contract administrator position and reducing the allocation for a new capital sinking fund.

Before Lumm’s amendment, the total full-time employee count in the police department, counting both sworn and non-sworn positions, was already proposed to increase from 150 to 152 and it will now go up to 154. The city is implementing a new police cadet program to allow potential new recruits to get desk experience in the department.

The budget also includes money for new body-cam equipment for police officers.

“The budget also does what Ann Arbor residents demand that it do, and that is to say that we improve our quality of life,” he said. “We’re doing that through investments in parks, climate action, affordable housing, human services, as well as an ongoing increased emphasis on non-vehicular transportation – pedestrians and pedestrian safety.”